


A Strange Bewilderment

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-28
Updated: 2010-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-11 07:08:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn't understand this thing between them. He never had. It was confusing and necessary and Jack needed him in ways he suspected he'd never fully comprehend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Strange Bewilderment

**Author's Note:**

> Timelines in the SG universe are no simple matter. No two rescources seem to agree. I admit that, here, I've adhered mainly to the Solutions Wiki but not entirely. I've also adopted canon from the new version of Children of the Gods, which cut the line about Kawalsky not knowing that O'Neill had a son. That never sat well with me. I see these two as friends. As such, Kawalsky would know.

“Love is the strange bewilderment which overtakes one person on account of another person” – James Thurber

_August, 3, 1982, Madison, Wisconsin_

 

Jack chafed against the confines of his service dress uniform. It was hot, heading for 90 degrees, and he was sweating like a horse. But the salt that prickled his skin and slid down his back could better be attributed to his state of mind.  Impotent anger mixed with remembered fear produced the same result.

He stood off to one side as the family walked slowly back to the funeral cortege. Michaels’ wife  - widow, damnit, Barbara - led the way, holding tightly to the hand of her toddler son.

Barbara’s face had that haunted, hollow look that marked out the newly-bereaved. But her eyes were dry. She held the folded flag in her right hand hard against her side. Michaels’ mother was crying, supported by her husband.

He’d been to too many of these funerals. Seen too many families grieve, their pride warring with their desolation.

Jack jumped when he felt a shoulder brush his. Man, he was twitchy.  Maybe he should see that counselor guy his new CO recommended. Maybe he’d have no choice.

“Going back to the house with the family?” Kawalsky. Hands in pockets. Looking like a fish out of water in his blues. The guy’s compact, wiry frame was made for BDUs.

“No. She needs her family, not the military. I’ll call in tomorrow. I’m sticking around for a few days.”

Kawalsky was silent for moment then said, “Military _is_ family, Jack. Screwed -up dysfunctional family. But still family. Ain’t you read the literature?”

Jack closed his eyes. He saw John Michaels go down again, as he had seen it happen a dozen times in his nightmares, flinched as the blood bubbled from his mouth. Swallowed hard as his friend asked him to look after his wife. And all the while the light died in his eyes.

 Family.

“Wanna hit a bar?”

Jack jolted back to the here and now. He turned and locked eyes with Kawalsky. This wasn’t about beer or the chance to share drunken war stories or the loss of their CO and friend in an overseas mission that had been beyond fucked up before it started and would never make it to official record.

“Yeah.” Jack said, throat dry.  He turned to see Barbara Michaels enter the car that would take her back to a life of widowhood.  “Yeah, I do.”

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 

_January 17, 1991. Somewhere on the Iraqi/Saudi Arabian border._

“Jesus. Could time go any slower?”

Jack tried to tune Kawalsky out. He didn’t like to talk much after the mission objective was achieved.  Just wanted the adrenaline to leach out of his system slowly. He hated the crash and fought to avoid it. And this wasn’t over yet. Getting out safely was often harder than getting in.

“Did you see those mothers blow? Better show than the Fourth of July. They got no radar, they got no advantage.  This’ll be over by Christmas.”

“I should hope so. It’s January.”

Kawalsky snorted a laugh and hunkered down further behind the rock. It offered blessed shade and shelter from the scouring wind. “Jeeze, I need a cigarette.”

Jack pushed his annoyance down. Kawalksy babbled after the action. He always had. It was his way of dealing. They all dealt in their own way. Jack would still rather have this man at his side in this kind of situation than almost anyone else.  Frank Cromwell excepted.

“How much longer?”

Jack checked his watch. “ETA in four.”

“I need a beer.”

Jack sniffed. “You need a shower.”

“Yeah? Ditto, buddy.”

Jack scanned the bleached landscape and shimmering horizon, straining to hear the whirr of the Apache’s blades.

Kawalsky relaxed back against the rock, folded his arms and crossed his feet at the ankles. “Back to Incirlik, shower, beer, hard jerk-off and sleep for 24 hours.”

Jack shook his head.

“Christ, I’m hard.”

The strap of Jack’s helmet chafed under his chin. He tried to work it loose.  “You’re always hard.”

“This is true.  Wanna help me out?” Jack eyed Kawalsky sideways as the man cupped his groin and thrust.

“You _ever _think about anything but sex?” Jack pulled out his binoculars and did a sweep to the west. Any second now he should hear the familiar drone of the GT-700 engine.

“Sure. Beer. Hockey. Women.”

“And we’re back to sex.”

“Come on, Jack.  Don’t tell me you don’t think about Sara these long desert nights.”

Sara. Blond hair, lithe, athletic body, stand-no-bullshit attitude. “I think about Sara. I think about  Charlie and fishing and my truck. Sex is way down the list.”

Kawalsky unwrapped a piece of gum and offered it to Jack. He shook his head. Kawalsky popped it in his mouth and chewed noisily. Jack’s irritation level rose another notch.

“Man, I wish I had my own Sara and Charlie to go home to.”

“What happened to what was her name ... Louisa?”

“Ran off with a fucking Marine.”

The distant sound of rescue made Jack turn the binoculars a few degrees to the left.  “Well ... I can see why she ditched _you_, but she obviously has no taste if she chose a fucking Marine.”

They gathered up their gear and Jack ran a final scan of the area around them. The radar site still smoldered behind them in the distance.

“Looks like we’re not gonna die today, buddy.” Kawalsky clapped him on the shoulder, then smiled into Jack’s eyes, relief and friendship there and the something else that was never defined but was always banked. He let his hand linger in a gentle squeeze before letting go.

His touch burned. Jack shuddered. “Not today,” he echoed, rising as the AH-64 hovered above them, stirring up its own desert storm.

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 

_May 11, 1991. American Military Hospital, Landstuhl, Germany._

“Jack. That you?”

Jack swallowed. It hurt. Everything hurt.  His hands ached as he gripped the phone tightly. “Yeah.”

“Man, I just heard. What the fuck?”

Jack closed his eyes. “What the fuck.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“You gonna be okay?”

The world was better with his eyes closed.  “Yeah.” _No. How the hell do I know? _Jack shifted in the bed. They’d strapped his ribs good and tight. It only hurt when he breathed.  He’d lost interest when they started cataloguing the other injuries, and the worst ones couldn’t be logged or splinted anyway. They said he was lucky, given how long he’d been held captive and the state of some of the other guys. He would mend. So, why didn’t he feel lucky?  The phone line was plagued by crackly static. It hissed, the noise invading his brain. It sounded too much like the sibilant hiss of a sandstorm. He could taste the dry sand they’d shoved down his throat and swallowed convulsively.

“We thought you were dead. Four months ...” Kawalsky’s voice was low and close to breaking.

Damn. He couldn’t deal with this now.  “Take more than one more mission gone to shit and a stay at the Baghdad Hilton to get rid of me, Charlie.” _I called him Charlie ... I’m worse off than I thought._

“Listen. Don’t worry okay? I’m at Buckley. I’ll go make sure Sara’s doing okay. Just concentrate on getting well. You spoken to her?”

_We cried at each other down the phone. _“Yeah.”

“Good. That’s good.  Jack ...”

_Don’t say it ..._

“Frank ...”

“I gotta go. Nurse with a honkin’ big needle. “

The silence and static were deafening. Louder than his own screams in his nightmares.

“Yeah. Sure. I ... I just. You know?”

Jack winced, tried to hold back the salt rush but he couldn’t stop the tears rolling down his cheeks and dropping onto the starched sheet anyway. “I know.” It was reaction. Pure reaction. He was safe now. He could give in, give it all up.

He replaced the receiver with a loud click then turned his face to the window and felt himself drifting off to sleep on a tide of painkillers.

His last thought was of the way Sara had screamed his name down the line and across the miles when he called her.

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 

_August 8, 1993, Denver._

Kawlasky was shit hot at pool. He was almost as good at pool as he was at poker. He cleared 80 bucks from a succession of no-hopers in the bar in just a couple of hours. He waved the wad of notes in Jack’s face and told him the beers and shots were on him for the rest of the night. They settled into a booth in the corner, the perfect spot, as Kawalsky put it, for watching the chicks come and go.

They talked about everything and nothing, easing into the familiar companionship that was theirs whenever they spent time together, and slowly slipped into a state of inebriation where the world looked good and they looked even better.

“I’m telling you, Kawalsky, you need the love of a good woman.” Jack burped quietly, not so far gone that social propriety didn’t still count for something.

“I need,” Kawalsky leaned across the table between them, expression earnest in a way only the truly drunk can be. The table was littered with empty bottles and shot glasses. “I need a woman in the kitchen and a man in the bedroom.”

Jack winced. He fought through the alcohol to register that this wasn’t the kind of thing you said here. Even in jest.

“Keep your voice down,” Jack hissed, then ruined the do-as-I-say effect by hiccupping.

Kawalsky laughed. He had a great laugh, full and throaty and with an endearing little hitch at the end.  Jack loved it. He didn’t hear it often enough. “Afraid I’ll be unfaithful to you with a ripped Jarhead? Not my type.”

Fucking alcohol. Loosening his tongue.

Two young women giggled as they passed by on the way to the bar. Jack knew _their _type ...anything in a uniform, preferably just paid and with money burning a hole in their pocket. Kawalsky’s eyes raked them up and down. “Now, they, on the other hand ...”

Jack snorted and felt some of the tension ease. Kawalsky continued to watch the girls, both tall and blonde.  

Kawalsky liked tall and blonde, Jack thought.  He definitely had a type.

 “They’d be welcome in _any_ room in my house, Jack.”

“Jeeze, Charlie. It really is time you settled down. You’re always saying you want someone to go home to”

Kawalksy downed a shot of Southern Comfort in one and grimaced as it hit his stomach. “All the good ones are taken, my friend.” And there was just something in the way he said it that pinged deep in Jack. Something ...

“Bullshit. What about Lureen, Sara’s sister’s friend? You seemed to get on pretty well the night Sara set you up with dinner at our place.”

Kawalsky shook his head. “She had issues.”

Jack smiled wryly. “We’ve all got issues.”

“Yeah? Her issues had issues.”

Jack laughed. It felt so good to shoot the breeze like this; to talk crap that mattered only to them.  It was liberating after missions he couldn’t talk about.  Wouldn’t talk about.

A karaoke session that had been going on since they entered the bar was in full swing and getting progressively louder and more raucous. A couple of guys had just murdered something by Bon Jovi amid much derision and hollering.

As Jack finished another Bud, he glanced at Kawalsky, who was looking at him with that look ... the one that meant ...

“Come on. Let’s show ‘em what we got.”

Jack practically choked. “What?”

“A little Springsteen, maybe? What do you say?” That patented twinkle, the dare in the question. What the hell ...

They lurched their way to the little stage and Kawalsky punched the button for Dancing in the Dark.

Jack threw his arm around Kawalsky’s shoulder and just let it all happen, carried off on a wave of alcohol-fueled bravado. They sang, almost tunefully, and Jack found himself reveling in the moment. Just the two of them, having  a blast, enjoying being together, sticking two fingers up to a world that was too often harsh and serious.

_“Hey, baby, I’m just about starving tonight.”_

Still standing, they fell into a tangled hug as the music ended and the audience whistled and cheered. “Yeah,” Kawalsky whispered, then into Jack’s ear, softly, “I miss you. You know?”

Jack couldn’t answer. So he clung on more tightly, feeling the length of their bodies pressed together.

Man, it felt so fucking good. The night had been so fucking good.

They pulled back from each other – nothing to see here, just drunken buddies doing the drunken buddy thing – and Jack missed the warmth and connection immediately.

It was getting late and Jack felt suddenly tired. He was getting older. His tolerance for alcohol wasn’t what it once was. As they made their way back to the booth, he spotted Sara, arms unfolding as she pushed off from the wall by the door. She must have seen their performance. He’d never hear the end of it. She walked towards them, car keys swinging from her fingers.  Dressed in jeans and white camisole top, she outshone every heavily made-up tight-skirted woman in the place.  Jack heart skipped at the sight of her. He still couldn’t believe his luck. “Hello boys. Your taxi awaits.”

“What? Now?” Kawalsky started to protest.  “But it’s ...

“Midnight. Time to go. Before Kawalsky here turns into a pumpkin.” She nudged him with an easy familiarity and he weaved sideways in an exaggerated fashion. When he straightened, he caught her eye, his expression almost shy and Sara looked away quickly, turning her attention to Jack.

“Come on, Jack. Early start. Charlie has school.”

Jack smiled at her and put an arm around her waist, drawing her to him for a kiss. He took her mouth forcefully, making her open to him, tongue delving and demanding a response in kind. Taking her face in his hands, he deepened the kiss until he couldn’t breathe and still didn’t want to stop.  He never did this in public. God only knew why he felt the need to do it now. Blame it on the beer and spirits. Yeah.

As Jack and Sara pulled apart, Jack saw Kawalsky watching them, face set, eyes fierce but, within seconds, the look was gone and Kawalsky was shaking his head.

“God, get a room,” he said, part teasing and part chiding. He headed out of the bar on unsteady legs.

Sara threw Jack a confused glance and looked like she was about to say something but instead put her fingers to her lips, as though the sting and echo of the kiss lingered.

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 

_April 3, 1994. Winter Park, Colorado._

The house that should have been full of joy and laughter and muddy school shoes and half-finished homework was full of people who didn’t know what to say.

No one knew what to say, so they either mouthed meaningless platitudes or said nothing, which was infinitely worse.

When Jack couldn’t take any more of the hushed tones and the occasional accusing stares, or worse still, the pitying glances, he went out back and took some deep breaths of cool spring air. Charlie’s bike lay on the grass where he’d left it. It looked for all the world as though he’d come running in at any moment, pick it up, run with it as he climbed into the saddle, yelling that he’d back for supper. He’d only be at Jake’s. Yeah, he’d done his homework.

Jack swallowed down a sob that threatened to escape; if it got out, there’d be another and another and he’d never stop.

He heard footsteps behind him, counted the steps down from the verandah. One, two, three, four. Heavy steps. Not Sara.  Sara wasn’t coming to find him. They couldn’t find each other anywhere.

Jack stared at the mud-spattered blue bike. How the hell was he supposed to pick it up and move it?

“Jack?”

Jack closed his eyes.

“You all right?”

_Fine. Peachy. Dandy. My kid shot himself with my gun. Any more fucking stupid, asinine questions, or should I just punch your stupid, asinine mouth right now and be done with it?_

“Just needed some air.”

“Sara’s sister’s here. Sara said I should come get you.” Kawalsky drew up beside Jack, not quite within touching distance. But Jack felt his solid presence.

Jack kept his eyes on the bike. The rear tire was flat. Charlie wouldn’t have gotten far.

“You can smoke if you like,” Jack offered, thoughts scrambling. He should go and greet Allie but the bike needed storing in the garage.  He and Sara had to choose hymns. The transmission on the truck needed attention.

“Trying to give up.”

Funny how easy it was, being outside in the Colorado chill with this man by his side. Brothers in arms. Good times and bad. Thick and thin. Jack never questioned Kawalsky’s place in his life. He was just so much a part of it that it never merited closer inspection.

They’d never be buddies-next-door friends, sharing a beer over the garden fence, or regular poker nights. Duty got in the way. Duty and rules, written and unwritten. Time spent together was infrequent, often arranged and then canceled when military life called.

But he mattered.

“The guys wanted me to pass on their condolences.” It was getting colder as the afternoon turned into early evening. Kawalsky’s breath condensed as he spoke, his voice softer than Jack recognized.

_For fuck’s sake don’t be gentle with me. I can’t stand that ..._

“Tell them I said thanks.” There was a cracked tile in the bathroom. He should fix it. Someone had to choose readings for the service; maybe the Velveteen Rabbit on being real. That would slay them in the aisles. This real enough? Sara, covered in her son’s blood, fighting her way out of O’Neill’s arms and into the hospital room that contained the body of the eight-year-old center of her world?

“They wanted to be here. For the funeral, but you know how it is. Couple of guys headed to the U.K. for training. Looks like NATO will be dragged into the sorry fucking Bosnian mess.”

A small brown bird hopped onto the bike frame, lighter than air, then just as quickly hopped off.  There and gone. It ran across the yard and trained a beady eye on the grass, searching for worms.

Charlie would be in the earth soon. Buried. Lost to them forever.  Alone. _Christ ..._

Jack ran out of words. There was only so long your mouth could say one thing, the supposed right thing, while your head wanted you to blow your brains out. It would send you crazy in the end. Perhaps he was already there. Last night, in the bare hour he managed to sleep, he saw himself climb into the freshly-dug grave, curl up on the coffin, just to be with him. Just to know that he wasn’t on his own in the dark. Charlie hated the dark.

“You wanna come inside? Or do you want me to tell Sara that you’ll be a while?”

Jack turned to look at Kawalsky and knew in that instant that he’d never call him Charlie again. The light was fading fast and in the gathering gloom their breath huffed out in white clouds, mingling and then fading away. Jack found that mixing of breath bizarrely comforting.

He wanted to be alone with Kawalsky. He wanted to fuck him, lose himself in the hard lines and angles of his body. More than that, he wanted Kawalsky to take him hard, without finesse, push him against a wall and pound him until the only pain he felt was in his ass and screaming muscles.  _That_ pain he could stand.

Kawalksy was looking at him with brown eyes fierce and full, his breathing fast and shallow. All Jack had to do was reach out. He knew what Jack needed, Jack could see it in his eyes.

 “I’ll be in. Just ... give me a minute.” Jack couldn’t look away. A flash of longing and pain, shared longing and pain, flashed in Kawalsky’s eyes and then he laid a hand on Jack’s arm.

It was too much. Jack nearly folded. He felt with a bone-deep certainty that if he rolled back his sleeve and looked at the skin beneath Kawalsky’s fingers, he would see their imprint there forever.

He didn’t understand this thing between them. He never had. It was confusing and necessary and Jack needed him in ways he suspected he’d never fully comprehend. Kawalsky patted his arm gently, then turned to walk back inside the house.

Jack followed him with his eyes and watched him climb the steps. Sara stood by the open back door, arms by her sides, tension written in every inch of her body. Kawalksy touched her arm and said something quietly as he edged past her.

Jack flinched as he touched her.

Sara smiled a small, wan smile at Kawalsky then caught Jack’s eye as she turned to follow him.

For the first time since he’d known her, he couldn’t read her. Her eyes, so intelligent and lively, were blank, sad and tired. She was closed off to him.

He was losing her, he could feel it.

He needed to put the bike in the garage but he couldn’t.

So, he took a deep breath instead and made his way back to the house.

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 

_December 12, 1994, Castle Rock, Colorado._

Jack loved the click of the cigarette lighter. It never failed to elicit a Pavlovian response. The delicious dark intake of smoke in his lungs was a moment away. He hated it and he loved it. And after sex he craved it.

The motel room was borderline shabby. Dusty dark blue drapes flapped against the window. The bedding was clean but that was all that could be said for it, and a lot more than could be said for the carpet that might once have been a mid-blue.

He plumped up the pillow behind his head and the movement caused the thin sheet over his legs to lift and billow and left the smell of semen and sweat trailing in its wake. Christ, he’d missed that. Nothing like the mingled scent of two male bodies. He craved that almost as much as the nicotine.

As Kawalsky handed him the cigarette lit from his own, Jack pushed himself a little more upright. There was that whiff of recent sex again. It made his tender ass clench, a tangible reminder of what it meant to be fucked by a man who knew what he was doing.

The pain felt good. The pain felt real.

Jack didn’t feel real very much these days.

Jack didn’t feel much at all.

They sat there silently for several minutes, breathing in the smoke, coming down off the high.

“Should really give these fuckers up,” Kawlasky said on an inhale, making his voice sound high and tight.

Jack took a deep draw, felt the smoke coil down his throat and into his lungs. “Yeah. That’s gonna happen.”

Kawalsky blew smoke out and Jack watched it roil its way up the ceiling, then dissipate and vanish. In  a flash of gut-wrenching misery he wished he could do the same.

“This chick I’m seeing? Melissa? Hates me smoking. Says it gets in her hair and clothes. I told her, I’m the only thing that gets in _your _clothes, honey. Course, I’m not. She’s screwing two guys that I know of. Maybe more.”

Jack  shook his head in disbelief. “Jesus. You make her sound like a hooker.”

Kawalsky laughed and the bed shook. “She fucks like one. Man, she can do things with her thighs that the finest cigar rollers would die for.”

Jack huffed a wry laugh. Kawalsky always made his sex life sound exotic and dangerous. Jack doubted it was, but it was good to listen to, and if it made him feel good then where was the harm? At least the man had a sex life, embellished or not.

“She also cooks like your mom. Home-made apple and cinnamon pie and ice cream after fucking like a sweaty mink . Swear I’d died and gone to heaven.”

“Well, don’t you just have all the luck.” The Marlboro was half gone. Jack was sure they burned down quicker these days.

“Yep. I do. Real find.” Kawalsky exhaled again and coughed, then turned part way over on to his side to stub out the remainder of cigarette in an ash tray on the floor beside the bed.  Jack caught a quick glimpse of bare ass as Kawalsky leaned. Another half-hour or so and he could bury his cock as deep as it would go and lose himself in the process. As long as Kawalsky didn’t have anywhere else to be. As long as Melissa wasn’t waiting.

Still turned away, Kawalsky asked, “And how about you? Seeing anyone?”  Jack thought he deliberately asked him the question then, when he couldn’t see him. They didn’t do emotions. They didn’t_ talk_ about feelings. They did mutually satisfying fucking and equally satisfying drunken nights in bars.

 “Nope.” He longed for a Camel No. 9. Marlboros were for shit. He stubbed the remains out in the ashtray on his bedside table.

Kawalsky must have found something to hold his attention as he continued to face away. “Hear from Sara?”

Jack flinched at her name. Fuck him for bringing her here, into this bed. Back into his life.

“Not since she called to say she was staying with her sister and wouldn’t be back.” Not since she broke what was left of his heart and then ground it into the dirt by returning the check he sent her “just so see you through, until you’re settled.”

Jack felt the tension in Kawalsky across the gap between them in the bed. “Maybe she just needs time.”

Jack’s instinct was to snap, “And how the fuck would you know what my wife needs?”  But he stayed quiet.  He’d wondered.  Sometimes. There had been something there between Kawalsky and Sara. There were smiles.  He’d seen their eyes catch and hold. He’d seen shared moments. He’d filed them all in a box he rarely dragged into the daylight.  Jack had been away a lot and Sara had probably been as lonely as he had. He wouldn’t have blamed her. Even when Jack was at home, after missions, he wasn’t really there. The seeds of their destruction were sown long before Charlie’s death.

Charlie.

The blond-haired, beautiful elephant in the crappy motel room.

Jack stared at the ceiling. “I can give her time. I just can’t give her what she needs. I can’t bring him back.” Why were they even talking about this? They didn’t talk. They fucked and grunted and exhausted each other and didn’t ask questions.  Didn’t need to. Everything that needed to be said was hissed out between gritted teeth or shouted out in the blinding moment of release.

“What _you _need is to get yourself recalled to active duty.” Kawalsky straightened up and sank down into the pillow, raising one leg. The sheet fell away. Jack’s mouth dried as Kawalskys’c cock was revealed, limp now, ruddy and vulnerable, lying in a nest of dark curls. “Retirement is for old men.”

Jack sighed. “I feel like an old man.”

“That’s because you retired.”

Christ. Kawalskian logic. There was no arguing with it. It was kind of like arguing with Jackson. Life was too short.

“You regret it?”

“Nope.”

“Liar.”

Jack shook his head. “I’ve done my bit, Kawalsky. I’ve fought the good fight.”

Kawalsky turned onto his side, facing Jack, edging  a little closer as he did so. “Bullshit. You miss it, I can tell. How the hell can you be satisfied with some shitty civilian job after you’ve walked on another planet. Huh?”

Jack turned on his side, too. They faced each other, Jack painfully aware of their naked bodies, close but not touching. Kawalsky had  a good body; hard, taut, muscles defined but not over-developed. His chest was covered with dark, curly hair that showed just a hint of gray. The hair on his torso led to down a darker thatch and a thick cock that was cut and beautiful to Jack’s eyes. Jack had a strong urge to drag the man towards him by his dogtags, to twist the chain in his fingers until it hurt. “I don’t know.  How did the NASA guys do it? They still have lives. How hard can it be?”

Dark brown eyes fixed on Jack with an intensity that still managed to sear him.  He couldn’t allow himself to feel. “You got no job, no wife ...”

“Oh, this is good. Go for the trifecta why don’t you? No son.” God, he hated himself sometimes.

Kawalsky winced. “That is not what I was going to say and you know it. Jesus. You can be such a bastard sometimes. Sara was a fucking saint.”

Sara. Sara. Sara. Sara.

“I need to pee. I don’t need to listen to this shit.” Jack threw the sheet back, caught again the scent of sex. Wanted to get hard so badly he ached.

He slammed the bathroom door shut behind him and leaned heavily against it. He shouldn’t have agreed to come here. He wanted, craved the sex, but being with someone who knew him, knew and loved him – because they did love each other, despite the fact they never said the words or acknowledged it – was just too hard.

He was better off alone, where he could dissect the shambles he’d made of his life in peace.  So many mistakes and so much to forgive himself for. It could take a lifetime. It probably would.

Jack pushed off from the door and walked over to the sink. He splashed cold water on his face from a faucet that was loose and encrusted with limescale. He looked at himself in the mirror above the basin. He looked ... old. He didn’t recognize himself. So much had happened in just a few short months. He’d lost Charlie and Sara, and walked on alien sand and broken a very personal credo. He’d left someone behind. Someone he’d grown to admire and maybe love a little. Jackson had wanted to stay but he shouldn’t have let him.

Shit.

He reached for a towel and rubbed his face dry. The towel was thin and smelled of cheap fabric conditioner.

He shouldn’t have come here.

As he stared at his reflection, the door opened on squeaking hinges. Kawalsky walked up behind him, put his arms around his waist and laid his head against Jack’s shoulder blade. They never did this. They never hugged, except when drunk, and rarely touched outside of sex.

“I’m sorry. You don’t want to talk about her and I shouldn’t have said that. I got no right. I got no idea what it was like.” He spoke with such gentleness.

Jack closed his eyes. From somewhere he whispered, “It was hell.”

Kawlasky shuddered a breath against Jack’s skin and in turn Jack tensed against the sensation. He felt his cock harden and breathed out a ragged breath. Kawalsky ran his hands up Jack’s chest and found his nipples hard and tight. He tweaked them between thumb and forefinger and Jack groaned.

Jack could feel Kawalsky’s cock nestled in the crack of his ass, hissed out “god,” when Kawalsky thrust and kissed and nipped his way up Jack’s neck.

“Wanna fuck me?”

Jack shivered as Kawalsky’s lips traced the shell of his ear and asked the question. Jack growled and turned, reached past Kawalsky and pushed the door shut, then shoved Kawalsky hard against it.

“Brace,” he ground out and his cock twitched and leaked as Kawalsky stretched out his arms, widening his stance as he did so.  Christ, he needed this. He couldn’t waste time looking for lube, so he spat into his hand and mixed it with slick pre-come and pushed two fingers in.

Kawalsky gasped but Jack knew he wanted this. Could feel it in the way he loosened as Jack worked his fingers in, pistoning slowly at first, in and out, then faster and with more force. Jack was close already. With his left hand, he grabbed his own cock and squeezed off at the base.

“Condom,” Jack gasped. Shit. They were in the bedroom.

“You clean?”

“Yeah. But you shouldn’t take my word.”

“What? I trust you with my life but I can’t trust you with this? Fuck that. Fuck me.”

Jack withdrew his fingers and, with a shaking hand, pushed his cock into place and thrust.

Kawalsky groaned.  He opened to him and Jack eased in until the front of his body was flush against Kawalsky’s back. Jack ran his hands up Kawalsky’s front and hooked his hands over his shoulders. And, oh _christ,_ it felt good.

“Fuck me,” Kawalsky ground out. “Hard, Jack.”

Jack switched off the screaming in his head ... the painful arguments with Sara, the sound of the single gunshot that tore his life and heart in two, Jackson’s desperate, “No!” as he took the staff blast meant for him and lost himself to the physicality of fucking. He felt only the way his leg muscles screeched and complained and burned. The way his cock felt as he found the prostate and brushed it over and over.

He heard himself grunt again and again, heard Kawalsky moan loudly and the spatter of semen on the tiled floor as the man came and shuddered, his ass contracting. The ripples sent Jack over the edge, spiralling into a tingling blackness.

Jack smushed his forehead against the back of Kawalsky’s head, rubbed there, over and over.

_It’s not enough. Nothing is enough. It still hurts ..._

Their heavy breathing synched up, sweat cooled. Jack wanted to stay buried forever.

“You are _so_ not ready for retirement,” Kawalsky panted, ending on a chuckle.

Jack smiled.  Despite it all, despite the voices still clamoring in his head, he smiled.

He thought it was probably the first time he’d smiled in eight months.

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; 

_September 28, 1995. Mahopac, New York._

Jack worked his tie knot loose. His suit was slightly too tight. He’d put on muscle since getting back into top shape again for the military. It was unseasonably warm, summer refusing to let go her seductive hold. The small crowd gathered outside the Catholic church could have passed for a wedding party. Bright colors, smiles rather than tears. Kawalsky’s mother’s wishes.

He’d said all he need to say to her before the memorial service. She’d looked at him with sadness and fondness and said, “He loved you, Jack. You were a good friend.”

And Jack had said, “He was a better one,” because it was the truth.

He wanted to tell her how it happened. She deserved to hear it, and from his own lips. But, as was the case for so many military families, she would never know the real story. Perhaps it was for the best. Did she really need to know that her son died after being infected by an alien parasite? That Jack delivered the final coup de grace?

He searched in his pocket and pulled out his shades. It was as he slid them on that he saw her.

He hadn’t known Sara was here. She must have slipped in the back while he sat at the front with the family. She walked slowly across to him, wearing a pale blue shift dress with a black bag on her shoulder. Her hair was styled and blonder than he remembered. She was thinner, too. She looked good.

“Jack.” She stood at arm’s length. Up close, she looked tired, her face a little more lined than he remembered.

“Sara.”

They stood, tense and awkward. God. When did it get to be this bad?

“You going back to the house with the family?”

“Yeah. Said I would.”

Sara nodded, then her face crumpled, her shoulders sagged and she bit her lip. “I’m so sorry, Jack.” There were tears and she swiped angrily at them.

He couldn’t bear her tears. “C’mere,” he whispered, and drew her unresisting into his arms.

He held her close, breathed in her familiar scent. She sobbed quietly for a few moments. She’d lost him, too. The trees shushed as a gentle wind blew up.

Sara pulled back, wiped her eyes and ran a hand under her nose. “Sorry. No tissue. Dumb, considering.”

God, he loved her.

They stood, the awkwardness back and growing by the second.

“I’m in town for work,” she said, haltingly. “Staying for two nights. Would you ... like to meet for dinner  tonight?”

Jack saw the appeal in her eyes. There was no reason either of them should be alone.

They could be alone together.

“Yeah,” he said, fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief for her. “I’d like that.”

 


End file.
